About Us
We're a mother-daughter-founded, owned, and operated immersive splatter art studio based in Seattle.
One of our favorite moments is when people walk through our doors, their eyes widen, their smile grows, and they say, "The pictures don't do this place justice... it feels like home."
For a long time, Jules' work took us all over the United States. We lived in so many places, met incredible people, and saw firsthand how different communities came together to laugh, belong, and unknowingly ... heal from the shared company.
What they healed we'll never fully know. That story belongs to them. But their eyes always told us something meaningful had shifted.
Throughout all those moves, we dreamt about what it would be like to live in one place and build something together. We envisioned a café-like space filled with books, art, and delicious epic food - a space where people could just be themselves and breathe a little easier.
Oakley often wrote the narratives of our dreams on napkins from gas stations and fast-food joints. They lived in the glove box for years, quietly accumulating as the vision grew.
So, in many ways, we designed this space in our minds long before it existed - a place that felt like home not only to us, but to anyone who found their way here. A third place, if you will. One that holds stories, laughter, and familiarity.
In 2023, Wicked Rae's became that place.
Oakley Frankie Rae
Founder & Creative Director | Experience Designer
Art and movement were my first language.
Before I had words to describe how I felt, I learned to express myself through my body. Drawing came first. Movement came next. When things felt heavy or confusing, I learned that I didn’t have to explain myself right away - I could move until I was ready. When I was seven, there was a day I walked in silence for nearly three miles. When I felt ready, my mom and I turned around, and I talked the entire way back. By the time we reached home, I felt lighter. That experience taught me something early on: feelings don’t need to be rushed. They need space.
As I grew up, movement stayed central to how I understood myself and others. Sports taught me teamwork, discipline, and trust - not just in winning, but in showing up together. Managing the girls’ basketball team deepened that understanding. Whether we won or lost, I felt it with them. I loved being part of a team, watching hard work pay off, seeing confidence grow, and learning how much strength comes from shared effort and mutual support.
I’m drawn to environments where people work toward something together. I pay close attention to group dynamics, energy, and emotional safety - how people move, communicate, and respond to one another, especially under pressure. Those observations shape how I design experiences at Wicked Rae’s. I care deeply about creating spaces where people feel included rather than observed, supported rather than managed.
I’ve always loved learning. I grew up reading and still love curling up with a good book. I’m especially fascinated by forensics, psychology, medicine, animal biology, language, and art - subjects that explore how living systems work, communicate, and adapt. Cooking and baking are another form of creativity for me, blending intuition, science, and care into something meant to be shared.
At Wicked Rae’s, I help design movement-based, sensory experiences that invite people out of their heads and back into their bodies. This isn’t about making perfect art. It’s about expression, connection, and feeling alive together. I’m especially passionate about working with kids, teens, and families, helping them experience creativity as freedom rather than performance.
This work matters to me because I’ve lived it. I know what happens when people are given permission to move first and speak later. They don’t shut down. They open up.
That’s the kind of space I want to help create - one where bodies are trusted, effort is honored, and people leave feeling more grounded, more connected, and more themselves than when they arrived.
Bones-Fish
Chief Morale Officer & Best Friend
Every studio has a feeling when you walk in. Ours happens to have four legs.
Bones is our ten-year-old English Foxhound. He’s gentle, observant, and quietly opinionated. He reads a room before anyone says a word. He knows who’s nervous, who’s holding tension, and who needs company without conversation. If a kid walks in tight and unsure, Bones will find them. They’ll play. The shoulders will drop. It happens so consistently we’ve stopped being surprised by it.
Bones came into our lives during a hard chapter, when getting outside and moving felt heavier than it should have. He needed walks, care, consistency. In showing up for him, we found our way back to movement and fresh air ourselves. That’s part of why he belongs here. He understands how healing often starts - quietly, without effort, one step at a time.
One student attended Wicked Rae’s weekly while going through chemotherapy. For eight months, Bones laid his head in her lap during every session. She told us he was one of the reasons she made it through that season. We believe her, not because it’s dramatic, but because anyone who’s spent time with him understands how presence works.
These days, Bones lights up the studio. He makes his rounds, chats with regulars, and reminds everyone that regulation doesn’t always need words, insight, or fixing.
Sometimes it just needs a warm head in your lap and permission to breathe.
Jules McVey
Founder & CEO | Creator of Athletic Expressionism™
If you’ve ever walked into Wicked Rae’s and felt something shift in your body before you even picked up paint, that’s not an accident. This place was built from a lifetime of watching how humans move through pressure, joy, chaos, and connection - and how much we all need spaces where we can finally exhale.
Before I opened this studio, my life moved through a lot of worlds: wildland firefighting, film and television, improv comedy, academic medicine, neurology labs, sleep medicine, psychology, federal healthcare leadership, and systems design. It sounds like a wild mix, but looking back, every chapter was teaching me something about what it means to be human.
I started in film and TV, creating artwork for shows, acting, and performing improv comedy at the LA Connection Comedy Theatre. I loved the way story, timing, and emotion shape how people feel. But then my life changed. I survived a serious car accident, and a firefighter sat with me as I came back to consciousness. That moment shifted everything. I wanted to pay that presence forward.
Shortly after, I went to the Fire Academy in Sacramento and became a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. I worked structural and wildland fires and highway accident EMS. It was one of my favorite gigs in this life - raw, physical, honest. Fire taught me instinct, teamwork, and what the body does when the mind is overwhelmed.
Next, I spent 11 years in academic hospitals like the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, the University of Arizona Health Network, KU Medicine, and a mix of public and private hospitals across the U.S. I helped open sleep labs, worked alongside neurologists and psychiatrists, and learned how the nervous system whispers long before it screams.
Then I spent a decade inside the Department of Veterans Affairs, leading clinical operations across Sleep Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Primary Care, Specialty Care, the ICU, Prosthetics & Sensory Aids, and Organizational Development. I saw how systems shape people - and how often people are asked to produce more while feeling less and the toll it takes.
Along the way, I returned to school and earned graduate degrees in Psychology and Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Those studies helped me make sense of everything I’d lived - how people learn, adapt, collaborate, and make meaning inside systems that weren’t built for their nervous systems.
Wicked Rae’s grew out of all of it - the science, the pressure, the creativity, the humanity. People originally came here looking for rage rooms. What they found instead was something better: a place to move, release, laugh, cry, reconnect, and create without needing to be “good” at anything.
From that work, Athletic Expressionism™ emerged - a movement‑based, sensory‑rich approach that blends physical release, rhythm, texture, and creative expression. It’s rooted in neuroaesthetics, somatic psychology, and sensory integration, but also in something older and more intuitive: the intelligence of the body.
I’m drawn to the intersections where disciplines blur - philosophy, neuroscience, art, movement, nature, ancient traditions, and lived experience. Not to optimize people or make them “better,” but to design environments where their nervous systems can re‑regulate naturally. Where expression feels instinctive again. Where being human feels possible again.
When I’m not in the studio (which, let’s be honest, isn’t often), you can usually find me exploring Washington, hiking, paddle boarding, painting, running, hanging out with my kid and my dog, or spending time with people who make life feel full and real.
If you’re curious about the work, the research, or the possibility of building something together, I’d genuinely love to connect.
Why This Studio Exists
Wicked Rae’s exists as a counter-environment - a place where perfection isn’t rewarded, play isn’t optional, and expression comes before explanation. We don’t teach people how to make perfect art. We create conditions where people can feel fully present, together, and leave lighter than they arrived without needing to explain why.
If you’ve been holding it together for a long time, if you sense that something about the world feels off but you don’t believe you are the problem, you’re probably in the right place.
This is the work we're committed to - not just here, but long term. Building spaces, frameworks, and cultural permission for humans to move, feel, and remember who they are when the body is trusted again.